Thread: Fire Ash II

FWIW I believe cigar ash is much finer than wood ash, the brand of cigar is of no consiquence. Cigerette ash will also work much the same, just there is less quantities in a cigerette.
Cigar ash and wood ash is about the finest gtrit abrasive you can find and has loooong been used as a polish on fine furniture. If you get a water ring ona good piece of furnatire a couple drops of wood alcohol (I think) and cigar ash will polish it out- depending on the finish. Usually shelac (which is alcohol soluable) and Laquer are on the furnature I am referring to.

Search in furnature restoration and refinishing sources for more info reguarding it's abrasive properties. It comes up as a 'handy home tip' on home shows and such regularly.

They also use powdered limestone as an abrasive in furnature refinishing.

GREAT THREAD
It's been 18 months since I visited the site and I returned to find new ways of strop conditioning. This thread is quite inspiring. Going back a few pages I suspect that it is the carbon element of the ash which active in providing the final edge (perhaps because the steel is carbon steel). I guess this hypothesis could be tested by rubbing charcoal on the linen side of the strop .... It is a purer form of carbon than ash
As for the leather side I've tried all sorts of conditioners but I'm now going to try rubbing a butter/charcoal mix on the leather side. Sounds wierd but so did ash. I have an aversion to bought strop paste because I don't know what's in it and I'm always looking for that "edge".

After its recent mention in a thread I had to dredge up this information on using fire ash on the linen side of the strop.

I also broke down and gave it a shot. Worked really well to give that final smoothness to a couple of my razors.

I just revived this to give a big Thumbs up to this technique.

Your welcome. It was a great thread.

This thread has been some interesting reading, and since I can't seem to shake this cold/cough I got to read the whole thing which brought to mind something that I just recently found, which also brought to mind an idea. It has been proven in my book that cigar ash can work wonders on a strop, now, what about say volcanic ash? I live in the northwest and when Mt. Saint Helens blew her top in the 80's we had ash fall for quite a while so much in fact that many filled viles of it for souveniers so to speak. I have such a vile and since reading this thread, it has peaked an interest. I am no chemist though and I am certainly not a geologist or someone who knows what grit anything is unless it's labeled but if someone knows these things I would be interested to find out.

Volcanic ash will vary in size or grit. Depending on how far from ground zero it will be sorted by natural forces like the wind or sometimes water. So depending on where they got it one persons ash might be bigger than another.
Volcanic ash will also vary in hardness and sharpness depending on the nature of the rock type being ejected and the type of eruption you are dealing with.
That being said it is possible to check all that but probably a bigger pain than buying a known size grit as in Chromium Oxide.

Or, just give it a shot and see what happens.

If it dulls the edge, switch back to cigar ash.

I doubt you'll harm the edge with a strop and ash of any kind.

(I think you can get volcanic ash in some pet stores. Chinchillas have a natural tendency to roll in the stuff because it keeps pests off of them. So Chinchilla owners buy it and put it in a bowl for the little critter to make use of as it would naturally.)

Several months ago I was at my parents and I snagged some ash from their fireplace and tried it with good results. I'm still not sure why the cigar ash I mentioned earlier in this thread didn't work, and I haven't revisited that option to see if there might have been some other factor at work.

I don't know that I will try the volcanic ash but I may try the fire ash next time I am out camping or something. Thanks for the post it is very interesting how different things can have different effects on the blades we like to use.

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

So far it looks like cigar ash is the way to go? How about cigarette ash? It´s easier to find.

My own ignorant and uninformed opinion would be that cigarettes contain all sorts of additives (tar, etc.) to help with produce an even burning product.
Cigars are more "all natural" just rolled up tobacco leaves, yes?

So I would think cigar ash will be cleaner than cigarette ash?